Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Cameras are Rolling on the Un-Road Trip

It was just about a year ago that I completed the Un-Road Trip and two weeks ago I headed out to North Carolina to tape the final intro and in-between segments for the Un-Road Trip TV show (the series is scheduled to premiere on Halogen in early 2011).

Halogen is cutting together all the footage from my trip into ten 30-minute episodes which will be strung together with a sort of conversational narrative. We wanted to try something new that wasn't a straight-to-camera hosting situation and I think it should be pretty cool (or at least interesting). Essentially the show takes place as I'm presenting a slide show of my trip to pals at my house in Oregon. It moves in and out of video as we count up modes of transportation, joke around, and delve deeper into the trip.

I flew in a few days before the rest of the cast so I could work on the script a bit more and help get the set in order. The set was one of the coolest parts of the shoot. They essentially recreated my house (okay - who are we kidding - I haven't lived anywhere for two years) in a studio in North Carolina. It looked pretty authentic and pretty Oregonian too. It definitely looked like some place I would live. After two days of prep work the rest of the cast arrived and the cameras started rolling. In addition to four cast members, there was a crew of about ten folks. We had three cameramen, a script supervisor, a gaffer, an intern, a producer- even a make-up person to touch us up every few minutes. I've been involved in some big productions before, but never in the middle of them like I was this time.

Take a look at some photos from the shoot:

I think it went pretty well, though it's pretty hard to tell when you're in the middle of it all. Were we funny? Was it interesting? Did I look too pale? The whole crew seemed to think it was going great so I'll have to take their word for it for now. I guess I'll find out for myself in a few weeks when I see the finished pilot.

Post-production is really in full swing now. The theme song's been written, the opening's being animated, and the first episode will start getting cut together next week. It's starting to feel pretty real, and I'll document as much as I can right here. Stay tuned...